Alaska Dedicated for Missionary Work

On 5 February 1928, President William R. Sloan of the Northwestern States Mission wrote to Governor Parks of Alaska and aksed what the possibilities were for missionary work there.

The Governor's reply was most encouraging. President Sloan requested and received permission from the First Presidency of the Church to send four missionaries to dedicate the land and preach the gospel in Alaska.

The honor of being the first missionaries sent to proselyte in Alaska fell upon Elders Heber J. Meeks, Alvin Englestead, James Judd, and Lowell T. Plowman.

With a letter of introduction from the Governer of Utah, the four missionaries set out by steamboat from Seattle on the Admiral Rogers of the Pacific Steamboat Company, arriving in Juneau on 5 June 1928, where they presented Governor Parks with the following letter:

My dear Governer

I take pleasure in introducing to you the bearers of this letter, Messrs. Heber J. Meeks, James Judd, Alvin Englestead and their associates. These gentlemen are visiting Alaska in the interest of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church. They are among our very best citizens and I commend them to your most favorable consideration.

While I am not a member of the Church which these gentlemen represent, yet I can assure you that the members of that faith are as high a type of American citizen as can be found anywhere in the United States. They are sober, industrious, thrifty and lawabiding people, imbued with high ideals. I shall appreciate any courtesies that you may be able to show these gentlemen.

Very truly yours,
George H. Dern
Governor of Utah

On 6 June 1928 Elder Heber Meeks dedicated the state of Alaska to the preaching of the Gospel at "Mormon Hill" in Juneau.

By 1981, Church membership in Alaska was in excess of eleven thousand. An indication of the growth of the church in recent years, is the more than eighteen million dollars that was spent purchasing property and erecting buildings from Sitka to Kotzebue .

In 1997 October General Conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley stated that a location had been selected in Anchorage, Alaska for the building of a new Temple, truely a result from years of missionary labor in the field that has been so white...The Alaska Anchorage Mission!

For more information on the Alaska Anchorage Mission, check out the Alaska Mission Tour. For a more complete history of the saints in Alaska, check out the book "A Gathering of Saints in Alaska."

(This History section taken from "A Gathering of Saints in Alaska", July 1999).